On April 22, 1995, the highly-regarded American poet Jane Kenyon died. Accordingly, Columbia Journal dedicated a portion of its Spring 1996 issue to her memory. This homage included two poems by another highly-regarded American poet, Sharon Olds. The second of those two poems was written for Kenyon’s husband, Donald Hall, who was also a highly-regarded poet. And Olds’ poem “Love” is a great piece of work, and a fitting tribute to these poet-inspirations.
“Love” is admirable in its simplicity, combining the cliché of “falling in love,” with beautiful tree imagery. “his / love for her, absolute, / had turned him into love.” Olds knows how to rejoice in a friend’s love and in her own love of that love. May we love that way, too.
Love
Sharon Olds
For Donald Hall
That day, everyone there fell
in love with Don—maybe Jane had most moved us,
but now we fell in love with his light, we
rose in love of the human at its brightest,
the one she had loved. He was so present, even
his being half or almost wholly with
Jane was fully there, his absence
from himself shining, like the liquid in his
eyes, her death's baptismal waters.
He stood like a tree—a tree which, if it
could, would fly, huge creature,
around the earth and around it, and around it,
to hope to come to her—he stood
complete and purely incomplete,
a being at every stage at once,
leaves, cones, lightning-marks,
water-like needles, bark, bole,
roots, he stood half overground,
and half underground, and he looked
at us. His hand was in her hand
and he took our hand, I fell in love
with a kindness that seemed it would not stop,
could not, there was no end to it, his
love for her, absolute,
had turned him into love—love turned
and its eyes lay on us. The next day
I hoped that, having stood in that light,
the old roots of my blooming-inward
could die, that the one who had stood like a hard
bird, a guard around me, could die,
could rise and fly, I could wave to it, as if
saying goodbye to my parents—goodbye!
goodbye!—and I could stay here, in this
pit of love, where I have fallen.
